A conventional coin counter comprises a support board or a chassis on which a rotary disk is mounted. A conveyor is arranged above the rotary disk and an actuation element is provided for driving the conveyor. A control circuit is provided for controlling the operation of the counter. Two adjusting mechanisms are provided close to the rotary disk for adjusting width and thickness of a coin passage. A coin dispenser is arranged at an end of the coin passage. A coin forwarding mechanism and a sensor electrically coupled to the control circuit are arranged alongside the coin passage for forwarding the coins to be counter and counting the number of the coins passing through the passage, respectively. An actuation device is arranged below the support board and comprises a spindle coupled to gears that mate one another. One of the gears is coupled to the rotary disk. The actuation device and the conveyor are electrically connected to the control circuit whereby the control circuit controls the operation of the actuation device and the conveyor. An enclosure houses the support board and the components and/or sub-assemblies on the support board. The enclosure defines a receiving hopper corresponding to the conveyor for receiving coins to be counted, which coins are then conveyed by the conveyor to the disk. By means of the rotation of the disk, the coins are forced into the coin passage and then moved by the coin forwarding mechanism toward the coin dispenser at which the coins are discharged.
The conventional coin counter, although working well for counting coins, comprises a number of parts or sub-assemblies that are mounted to the support board, which complicates the construction of the coin counter. Due to the frequent use of the coin counter, especially in the financial business, maintenance and repairing are definitely needed. Two of the most frequently damaged sub-assemblies are the thickness adjusting mechanism and the coin forwarding mechanism for they are constantly subject to impact of the coins moving along the coin passage. One commonly observed problem is coin jamming inside the coin passage. Such a complicated construction comprised of a great number of parts makes it not possible for a general user to do repairing or maintenance by himself or herself. Thus, a maintenance technician must be called or the machine be sent back to the factory for repairing and maintenance. This inevitably increases the costs of using the coin counter. In addition, such a great number of parts often result in lose of one or two small parts and this makes the maintenance and repairing operation difficult and inconvenient.
Thus, the present invention is aimed to provide a coin counter having improved adjusting mechanisms for overcoming the drawbacks of the conventional coin counter.